Zephyr; Rain
by Meiran Chang
Summary: A Trunks monologue on his teacher's death. Lots of conjecture, so no "omae o korosue" for defiling the purity, please.


  
ZEPHYR; RAIN  
  
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Author's Notes: This is based on a music video by Lord Rae at OtakuVengeance.com. It's the Trunks Tribute. Awesome music video, btw, kudos to Lord Rae! At any rate, in one of the screen shots, Gohan is, interestingly enough, minus an arm. So that's where the armless thing came from. Also - this is mostly conjecture, and yes, I'm aware that I entirely ignored Vegeta. That's because this is a Trunks monologue on how his teacher affected him, not on how the loss of his father affected him.   
  
Extra note: This is from Mirai Trunks (Future Trunks) POV, in case anyone misses it.  
  
by Meiran Chang / Tobiasrulz (chang_meiran@mailcity.com) (http://meiran_chang.tripod.com)   
  
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I remember his fighting. He moved like a zephyr, a whisper of wind, full of grace, with the temerity to grow into a fierce and daunting hurricane, a dance borne of gold like a phoenix rising. Power moved in him as he willed it: all his movements were deliberate; he did nothing without first thinking on it. He was charismatic, with a small, cynical smirk and black, black eyes. It was no big thing for him to unleash the force of his quietly remarkable personality.   
  
His missing arm deterred him not a whit, and I never taunted him because of it. Verily told, the thought never crossed my mind, for who was I to laugh? My teacher had seen far more than he could ever tell me. The missing arm was a badge of courage, a grim reminder of what we could never escape. He never needed to tell me to be cautious. I was born in a time of fear, where paranoia was a way of life and innocence its cruel parody.  
  
We talked often, of many things. He had wanted to be a scholar, he told me. He had studied very hard when young that he might reach that goal. He had never enjoyed fighting, not after the shock of seeing his own mentor Piccolo sacrifice himself that he would live. But once his father and father's friends died, my teacher no longer had a choice.   
  
He would say with a sigh that it was a cycle, clear enough for anyone who had studied history to see. I, too, was far too young to fight. So he said. But what could be done?   
  
My gifted teacher taught me how to use the eldritch power inside me, how to tame the torrent to my hands and release it with precise control in a jerkily elegant dance of shrieking wind. What I labored so long and so hard to master seemed second-nature to him. He would lift a hand and, with scarcely a furrowing of brow, demonstrate exactly how to funnel power by calmly levelling a tree. It seemed so simple, when he did it. My teacher.   
  
He was the most approachable godling I ever met. Godling, for he was young, only ten years or so older than I. I never realized just how young he was, for though his tone was ever light, his eyes were ancient and so weary. They glittered with an all-pervasive ache, the pain of one who has been forced to learn to daily live with atrocities. It was an unhappiness he muffled for my sake.   
  
I was hope. That's what he used to tell me. I was the son of a fierce, proud fighter. I was the son of Vegeta and I would save this planet. It sounded so nice when he said it like that, one warm, callused hand on my shoulder, a half-smile quirking his lips. It made me want to live up to what he saw me as.   
  
Because, simply put, I loved him. He was the older brother I never had. I worshipped him, wanted to be as much like him as possible. He possessed so much knowledge, so much wisdom, and so much power that the core of him shone. He was brilliant, yet unprepossessing. He was everything good that I ever aspired to become.   
  
He was my constant. When everything was crumbling around me, when I fought and fought until I felt like I wanted to die because of the impossibility and despair of it all, when my heart was methodically tearing itself into tiny fragments and hurling itself into whirlwinds, he was there. With a touch he made my tears flow, gathering me against his shoulder to sob myself out. He always listened. He didn't offer make-believe consolation, because in our situation there was no such thing as comfort. He offered his sympathy and the knowledge that pain shared was halved, and somehow that was enough. And after the inclement storms, the zephyrs were nothing to worry about.   
  
Most important for a teenager was that he never treated me like an idiot incapable of any independent thought. What I thought was just as valuable as what he did and he treated it like that. Of course, he tempered my viewpoints with his own vast experience. It only made sense, as I had half again his experience. I was amazed at how extraordinarily patient he was: my temper was vicious, but he didn't seem to have a breaking point.   
  
It was much later, when I talked to my mother, that I realized my teacher did have a breaking point. But for the sake of his student, he never broke down before me. He did so much for me, and in return I gave him the respect he had earned, and tried my best to match his high standards.   
  
For high they were. Perish the illusion that my teacher was soft. In our world there was no room for softness. A moment of misguided mercy would doom us, sure as Satan's hands. My teacher worked me until I crumbled to the grass on my side, heaving for breath, drenched in sweat and sometimes in my own blood. Life wasn't fair and as a result, neither were our practice bouts. He knew some dirty tricks. The androids knew that many more. Knowing this didn't make surviving training any easier on the body, but at least he always explained why he did something, when asked.   
  
He was never unkind to me. He pushed me, as carefully, as gently and as kindly as we could afford to be, to heights I simply would not have reached without him.   
  
So when my constant died, I fell. The higher you fly, the harder you fall.   
  
It was no surprise that the rain rained down so hard, beating a wicked tattoo on my skull, clawing at my mentor's dead body. The rain mixed with the tears falling from my eyes, just so much hydrogen and oxygen I tried to tell myself but it wasn't so, it wasn't so. I clenched my fist and my nails pierced my palm; the blood, thick and red and heavy, tracked down my wrist and dripped onto the filthy ground. Just a little more blood, cloying sweet, to mingle with the iron rain and aftermath of battle. It didn't matter whose blood it was, not anymore.   
  
He was not supposed to have died. It couldn't happen. My teacher... this man with black eyes and that warm, if tired, smile. The bastards who had killed my father now killed the only person I could call a brother? No. It wasn't right. It wasn't right.   
  
My scream threw itself against the padded walls of my mind.   
  
My teacher lying face down in a puddle, covered in grime and rain and dirt and blood. No. Yes. The orange outfit tied with a utilitarian blue cloth, splotched with mud. It was sacrilege. It couldn't be happening. It was unreal.   
  
I never actually recovered. His death, the death of Goku's son, of the last person who had known the Saiyans, it was too much. All responsibility for this miserable world and its people fell onto my shoulders. For my mentor's memory, I tried, but trying wasn't enough. I was the only one left, and I was too scarred, too jaded, after a while, to fight the proper fight. It wasn't that I didn't care - it was that I couldn't find the strength and skill I needed. I needed people. I needed him back.   
  
My mother wasn't the right person to talk with. She didn't share my power - she couldn't answer my questions. She didn't know what it felt like to have power surge through you, making your heart drill in your chest, exploding through your hands like a pure virgin angel of destruction. So easy to drown if you weren't careful. My mother didn't know what it was like to fear fighting: she had never fought, only watched from a distance. My mother couldn't explain the intricacies of that wild, wicked murder dance. I loved my mother, but there were places where she and I would never meet, and that was one of them.   
  
My teacher warned me of the danger of losing myself to the power. He warned me. My teacher. He...  
  
Died. A long time ago. And if I'm Earth's last hope, Earth is a goner. I can't win this battle. That's why I came back, to when my father was still alive and Goku was still kicking, to when my beloved tutor was still a little kid. I went back clutching the precious vial of antidote and gave it to Goku to save his life, because no child should have to face my future. The tragedy of such a painfully slow holocaust should not be so, and if I must warp time's fabric itself, so be it.   
  
For I never forgot the death of my mentor.   
  
I will save him. I will give him the chances denied him. I want him to be the scholar he so wanted to be. I'll give him back his dream, though he shall never know it, and though I will exist - I, Trunks, lone resistance against the androids - only as the strange youth with the medicine that saved Goku's life. My existence as I know it is hollow now anyway - and when I return, this tragic tale will be no more. I'll never have lived it. It will be my second chance.   
  
It will be your second chance too, dear mentor.   
  
Gohan, I stand beside you know and I dwarf you. You're a child, not the adult I know. Knew. But I can see the man you'll grow up to be looking out through your bright black eyes, and I know that to give you a chance, a hope, no matter the cost - it's worth it. It's what you would have done for me. Teacher mine, this is the gift I give to you.   
  



End file.
